HSA Excess Contribution for spouses with individual plans

[manii]

Hello, my new spouse and I will both have individual HDHP plans from our employers in 2025/2026. The individual HSA contribution limit is more than 2x the family limit. From my research, since we each have indiviudal plans, (neither of us have family plans), we can both contribute up to the full individual limit.

Reference:

•  https://www.irs.gov/publications/p969

  • Rules for married people.: If either spouse has family HDHP coverage, both spouses are treated as having family HDHP coverage.

• https://thelink.ascensus.com/articles/2025/5/12/how-can-hsa-contributions-be-split-between-family-me...

  • If both spouses have self-only HDHP coverage, they can each contribute up to the limit for single coverage: $4,300 for 2025 and $4,400 for 2026 (plus catch-up contributions, if eligible) to their individual accounts.

In our case, since no one has family coverage, then we are both eligible to contribute up to the individual limit. Does TurboTax handle this case correctly or will it be marked as an excess contribution?

I tried testing it out in the software, but since the software only has the limits programmed for 2024, which [family limit] = 2 * [individual limit], I cannot test out the scenario. Will TurboTax handle this case correctly?

[dmertz]

You are correct that in this case the self-only limit applies to each spouse separately.  TurboTax handles this properly.  TurboTax will prepare your tax return will include two Forms 8889, one for each of you, each entirely separate from the other.  In the HSA section of TurboTax, make sure that you indicate self-only coverage for each, not family coverage.

Each spouse's contributions must be made to that spouse's own HSA.

You can test the scenario in 2024 TurboTax by entering amounts equal to the 2024 self-only limit.  (You can also test using the 2025 limits, but that requires doing overrides in forms mode of the download version of TurboTax.)

[manii]

Thanks for confirming! The reason I wasn't sure using the 2024 numbers, is that for 2024, the HSA deduction limits are $4,150 for self-only and $8,300 for family, so we are still under the family limit even if we fill up to the individual limit, so I couldn't tell which limit it was using for the calculation "behind the scenes". This is not the case for 2025 and 2026.

[dmertz]

Keep in mind that TurboTax developers usually takes until sometime in December to update the HSA contribution limits, so the initial release of 2025 TurboTax is still likely to be using the 2024 limits.